


The Letter

by vtn



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Blackwood Wins, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-11
Updated: 2010-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:25:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Blackwood told the truth—he does have access to great and terrible powers.  In his new, dystopian London, Sherlock Holmes pens a letter while on the run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Letter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anonymous prompt on [sherlockkink](http://sherlockkink.livejournal.com): _Blackwood actually has magical powers. Wins. Rules Britain. Makes Watson his unwilling consort (except he secretly loves it). (IDK, Holmes can be the resistance leader or something)_
> 
> Except I ended up filling more of the last, throwaway sentence of the prompt than the rest. Sorry, anonymous.
> 
> Contains some very vaguely implied dub-con/non-con. Read at your discretion.

1 December, 1891

  
My dear Miss Morstan:  
  
I only wish I could be with you now, for I understand that in these trying times it is only in sharing our fears that those fears can be relieved. But I am sure you realize that for me even to send this letter is putting me in great risk, which is why I have taken the care to have another man write it, and in his left hand, so as to render the script unrecognizable. Much less could I take the risk of revealing my location.   
  
Every night, by night, I run. I must not stay in one place for too long lest I be found. By day I sleep, curled in some nameless underground crawlspace alongside the rats and spiders. I have already gambled my safety in London's dankest opium dens. Without the drug I cannot rest; I shake and I become tangled in my own thoughts. Mary, I confess I am not the man I used to be. But London is not the city she used to be.  
  
I am told you wish to see me leave London for safety, find a place where I can cease to spend my every waking moment in fear of my inevitable end. But Mary, I must fight.  
  
It is not simply for London that I must. For while I love this city – and I do love her, for all of her cruelties and games – she is no longer mine. Under the sign of the Four Orders, she haunts me too, now, this devil-city. Mocks me. No, it is not for London.  
  
It is not even for Watson, Mary. I confess this to you because I have no one left to confess to. For though I have always pledged to come to his aid, I could not put myself and so many others in danger just for the sake of one man.  
  
Mary, my dear Mary, I am sorry that I have brought this secret war to your doorstep. But I believe you understand just as well as I why I cannot surrender. I know you felt the pain that I feel when I saw my John—our John—at the feet of Lord Blackwood. I know that you, too, cried out silently at the dullness of his eyes, cried to see that he had been broken in body and spirit. And then the dark Lord's hand, his curséd hand, stroked our John's cheek (and I do not know if you had the sense to look away or if, like me, you bear a love for him that is stronger than sense), and John smiled.  
  
That is why I must resist, Mary. It is because he smiled. Because Blackwood had not just taken John's body, he had taken his heart. And he flaunts it before me. He means to make a fool of me. And Mary, I am many things, but I will not be made a fool.  
  
S— H—


End file.
